Author: dig

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The Thing Is, Ellen Bass

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

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“crouched low and smiling”

Songs (IV), E. E. Cummings

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Goes out,

comes back—

      the love life of a cat.

[goes out comes back] by Kobayashi Issa, translated by by Robert Hass.

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Mosquito at my ear—

does he think

      I’m deaf?

[mosquito at my ear] by Kobayashi Issa, translated by by Robert Hass.

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From Screen to Paper: A Short Story About Why Artmedia Was Born by Gady Alroy.

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The Facts of Life, Pádraig Ó Tuama

That you were born

and you will die.

That you will sometimes love enough

and sometimes not.

That you will lie

if only to yourself.

That you will get tired.

That you will learn most from the situations

you did not choose.

That there will be some things that move you

more than you can say.

That you will live

that you must be loved.

That you will avoid questions most urgently in need of

your attention.

That you began as the fusion of a sperm and an egg

of two people who once were strangers

and may well still be.

That life isn’t fair.

That life is sometimes good

and sometimes even better than good.

That life is often not so good.

That life is real

and if you can survive it, well,

survive it well

with love

and art

and meaning given

where meaning’s scarce.

That you will learn to live with regret.

That you will learn to live with respect.

That the structures that constrict you

may not be permanently constricting.

That you will probably be okay.

That you must accept change

before you die

but you will die anyway.

So you might as well live

and you might as well love.

You might as well love.

You might as well love.

.

This poem appeared in Sorry For Your Troubles by Pádraig Ó Tuama, published by Canterbury Press Norwich, 2013.

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“Sandrine Bergès on philosophy‘s rigid and also porous spheres for public life and the home, via readings of Aristotle, Hierocles, and Musonius Rufus. (aeon)

Hierocles the Stoic is famous among ancient philosophers for his account of Stoic oikeiôsis – moral development – as a progression through concentric circles starting from the desire for self-preservation to cosmopolitanism. Stoic moral development consists in first making oneself ‘at home’ in one’s body, then we reach out to those in the circles closest to us: parents and siblings, then to those farther from us – our other relatives and neighbours, our countrymen and women – and finally to the whole world. The concentric circles are important because they offer a clear and vivid explanation of what the Stoics mean when they declare that they owe moral allegiance to the entire world.

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Scotland 1 – Haiti 0

New York Knicks, 2026 NBA Champions.

la première introduction en Bourse techno-fasciste de l’histoire

Le succès de l’introduction en Bourse de l’entreprise spatiale est celui d’un capitalisme irrationnel, destructeur et violent.

(Mediapart)

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Fearing madness in all things huge
and their requiring.

We Manage Most When We Manage Small, Linda Gregg

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In his address (30 January 1981), [CLR] James located Walter’s assassination within the context of the Seizure of Power. (Verso)

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[…]

Before the dawning
          Of my life;
I was the river
Forever winding
To purple dreaming,
I was the glowing
Of youthful Springtime,
I was the singing
Of golden songbirds,—

[…]

I was the vision
Of youthful striving,
I was the summer,
I was the autumn,
I was the All-time—
      I was love.

Revery, Fenton Johnson

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“The quality of the gift depends on the sincerity of the giver.” (Ann Patchett)